The Cape Doctor (Little, Brown & Co., 2021)

This novel is based on the true story of James Miranda Barry, who began life as a penniless Irish girl but ended up successfully practicing medicine as a man in 19th-century Cape Town, South Africa. Barry changed from daughter to son in order to enter medical school and provide for family but soon embraced the freedom of living life as a man. After befriending the aristocratic Cape Governor, he rose to the pinnacle of society, before the two were publicly accused of a homosexual affair that scandalized the colonies and nearly cost them their lives.

About the author
E. J. Levy’s work has been featured in The Best American Essays, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation and Paris Review. She is the author of a prize-winning story collection, Love, In Theory, and her anthology, Tasting Life Twice: Literary Lesbian Fiction by New American Writers, won the Lambda Literary Award. Levy teaches in the MFA Program at Colorado State University.